1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to automotive doors and more particularly to the automotive doors of a type that exhibits excellent rigidity and durability against an external force applied thereto. More specifically, the present invention relates to the automotive doors of a type that has an inside grip handle and exhibits excellent rigidity and durability against an external force applied thereto from the inside grip handle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, in the field of motor vehicles, various doors have been proposed and put into practical use. Most of them are of a type that comprises an outer metal panel, an inner metal panel of which peripheral edges are welded to those of the outer metal panel, and a door trim that is lined on an inner surface of the inner metal panel. Between the outer and inner metal panels, there is formed a certain clearance for installing therein various elements for a power window mechanism.
Hitherto, assembling the elements of the power window mechanism in the clearance has been carried out by handwork of an operator. For this, the inner metal panel is formed with a handhole through which one hand of the operator inserts into the clearance for assembling the elements.
Recently, a new assembling technique has been proposed in which the elements are assembled beforehand on a module base that is separate from the inner metal panel formed with a larger opening, and then the module base is secured to the inner metal panel having the assembled elements on the module base projected into the clearance through the larger opening.
Usually, an automotive door is provided at its inside surface with a grip handle that is to be gripped and handled by a passenger when he or she intends to open and close the door.
When the grip handle is pulled by the passenger for closing the door, a certain stress is applied to a handle mounting portion where the grip handle is connected to the door. Thus, if the grip handle is strongly pulled, a larger stress is applied to the handle mounting portion, which of course tends to induce an undesirable deformation of the handle mounting portion of the door, particularly, a deformation of the inner metal panel to which the grip handle is directly connected.
For suppressing such undesired deformation, it may be thought out that the thickness of the handle mounting portion is increased and/or the handle mounting portion is reinforced by a reinforcing plate. However, such measures tend to induce increase in cost and weight of the door.
Actually, various measures for solving the above-mentioned deformation of the handle mounting portion of the door have been proposed, some of which are disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application (Tokkai) 2002-166726, U.S. Pat. No. 4,937,977 and WO2002/075090. However, even the measures disclosed by such publications have failed to provide the handle mounting portion of a door with satisfactory rigidity and durability for some reason.